The Tale of a Screw-Up

[Lilium]

She was born Vinetaa Merila Coursten on June 20, 1988.

Her father did not want a girl, and her mother had had cervical cancer shortly after her birth, so the uterus was removed and therefore she could bear no more children. The father, furious at this, killed his wife in the hospital in a wild burst of anger. When he realized what he'd done, he threw himself off of a bridge and his bones were smashed from the impact, killing him instantly. He left his only child at the hospital without parents or any place to go.

Vi was adopted by her mother's sister Julie until she was twelve. At that time, Julie married a man that didn't want Vi around, so she was kicked out.

She was found in an alleyway by a human girl by the name of Lucy, who took her home to Mystery Island. Vi met her new siblings, Ronyshia, Arathyne, and Tahtrei. She and Ara clashed at once. The girl was really weird, and Vi didn't like her. Roni and Trei she got along with fine, but Ara was something else.

[Lilium]

Time passed by. Vi saw less and less of Lucy and did worse and worse in school until she just stopped caring. After a very long absence, Lucy returned from the human world and found Vi, nearly sixteen years old, a bum. Vi simply saw no point in getting an education. She and Lucy worked out a deal. She could drop out at sixteen if she wanted, but if she did, Vi was not welcome to live under Lucy's roof. She could visit, but for a whole year, Vi would be forbidden from staying longer than a week with her family. Vi agreed at once and dropped out as soon as she could. She was gone even faster.

Out on her own, life was dirt tough. She got a job in Neopia Central at the food store. She stole her meals and saved up her money, waiting to find something great to spend it on that would impress Lucy and show her that Vi could manage well without an education.

[Lilium]

And boy, did Vi spend that money. She burned it so fast; before the lighter could reach it. But she didn't burn it all on anything great. Nothing that would impress Lucy. Nothing that would let Vi back in the house for the next five years.

She first found him sneaking around in the alleyway with the trash cans when she was taking the trash out for the food store. She probed him and he asked, "Are you alone?"

She looked around her with a mock-frightened face on, and said, "Yeah, I am!" with exaggerated surprise in her voice.

"Don't be smart," the Zafara snapped from the shadows. "I've been watching you for a while. You don't have an easy life."

"No one does," she retorted, too tired to be irritated with the fact that she'd had a stalker.

"Yeah, but yours is extra sucky. I was just wondering if you'd like an escape." He rubbed his index finger and thumb together. "It wouldn't cost too much, either..."

Vi snorted, but was interested. After all, what did she have to lose? "Okay," she said. "What do you have to offer me?"

[Lilium]

She was addicted. She'd taken the first dose back with her to her spot under a small bridge where she lived after her shift ended and she stole a needle. She'd been a little apprehensive the first time she was about to use it. This stuff could kill her on the first dose. But the reality sunk in that her life was a shithole. So why not? If she died, whatever. The food store lost an employee. Big deal. So she injected it into her.

That first dose of heroin got her hooked. She felt it run through her veins with a white-hot fire that felt so great. She was invincible. There wasn't a worry in the world. Her water magick, that she'd discovered at age three, was strong and powerful, if harder to control. She was unstoppable.

Eight months of savings were gone within two weeks. She bought so much of it and used it every day. When she woke up the next morning feeling like someone stepped on her, she just took another dose to help her feel better. Her inner elbows were littered with marks from wher the needle broke the skin.

[Lilium]

Vi was fired from her job at the food store but that didn't mean she was done stealing from it. She started hanging out with the Zafara dealer, who's name was Hammer, and his friends. She found the wonders of alcohol and when she wasn't high, drank a ton of it. She moved from her spot under the bridge to the run-down shack where Hammer, Jat, Eppi, Lana, and Manot lived. The normal routine around there was to get high or drunk in shifts, throw up and be in pain in the morning, and then do it all over again. Hammer was the only one that didn't drink or take anything. He was the one who got it all for them, along with some food and anything else he could steal.

Eppi and Lana were the only other girls and the biggest drunks of all six of them. They were vulgar and a bit slutty. Sometimes Vi would walk in on them, shitfaced, making out in the bathroom. She would either shut the door and walk away or yell things at them that not even she understood.

[Lilium]

((Warning: suggestive themes. No details.))

Hammer lived upstairs in the "nice" apartment. He took great interest in Vi - a little too much. He struck a month after she moved in, when she was drunk and giggly. He asked her to hang out with him upstairs and she did while the others were watching Manot and Jat beat each other up.

He had a TV. They were watching a show through the horrible reception when Hammer suggested Vi go to sleep because she looked really tired. She decided what the heck and fell asleep, waking up hours later alone and without any clothes on.

She was irritated and went downstairs to demand Hammer give back her clothes, and that was when the group attacked. -skips details- Later, she was crying outside of the shack, clothed in only a blanket. Hammer found her and acted very kind and was sympathetic. He apologized for what they did but told her that if she wanted more of her heroin supply, she would have to pay up somehow. She was dead broke, and so she spent half her time upstairs with Hammer, half downstairs high.

[STARLING]

Aww Poor Vi.
Drugs are badd badd badd.
Keep writing, I like it so far C:

[Lilium]

Vi hardly knew what was going on anymore. Somehow her life had taken a wrong turn and had gone right down the drain into the sewer. She barely remembered what she'd done the day before. Her body had built up a tolerance to the drugs and alcohol, so she needed more to get the same effect. Slowly but surely, she was killing herself.

Then on the morning of September 15, 2005, high as ever, seventeen-year-old Vi was wandering around the back area of Neopia Central when she tripped and slid down a slope, landing in a river. She couldn't do anything but flail around as the water dragged her somewhere, somewhere and away from the city, away from her lifeline, from her home of almost a whole year. Her head hit a rock and she felt something hot and wet escape her skull before passing out.

[Lilium]

She woke to the sound of soft singing. Her head was throbbing and wrapped in white gauze. She became aware that she was lying in a bed with a fluffy feather pillow. Her brown eyes opened and she saw she was in a tiny hut. A woman, the source of the singing, was rinsing out more gauze over a sink, and Vi could see a flash of bright red water.

She groaned and the woman looked over and smiled. She was a white Kacheek and made her way over to Vi swiftly after rinsing and drying her hands. She sat in a chair beside the bed.

"Who are you?" Vi asked quietly.
"I am Aleta," the Kacheek answered. "You are very fortunate I found you."
"What- what happened?"
"You were half in the river, half on the bank. Your head was bleeding and it stained the grass. I found you and took you here to tend to your wound. You've been quite restless."

[Lilium]

"Oh," Vi said, confused. Her head hurt really bad. It was forgotten as she drifted into sleep.

*

Hours later, the moon was high in the sky and Vi was being carried. She opened her eyes and found herself in Aleta's arms. She was too tired to complain. She took Vi to a rock on which she was placed, and then Aleta began to murmur spells in a language Vi didn't know. The whole time, she felt a sort of draining feeling, but also a replenishing one at the same time. All at once Aleta trailed her finger up Vi's stomach to her throat and then to her mouth. She curled her finger up; Vi's mouth opened and a black, chalky substance drifted out. It pulled out of her mouth and into a bag in Aleta's hands.

[Lilium]

The last of the black stuff went into the bag and Aleta shook it; it burst into black flames. Vi, who had been too physically tired to even move before, now had new strength and with it, flinched so dramatically she fell off of the rock. She stood up quickly and pointed at her.

"What is that?!" she screeched.

"Calm down," Aleta said coolly. "I merely removed all the toxins from your body. You are so young, and it is a waste to see your body so polluted by drugs and alcohol." She looked up at Vi sternly. "By the look of it, had I not acted, you would have died within the year."

Vi did a double-take backwards. "Wait, wait, within the year? THIS one?? But it's September-- there's not much left of the year!"

"Precisely. You were killing yourself, dear. It was slow at first, but quickened its pace at an alarming rate. I saved your life."

"Why?? Why would you do that? You don't know who I am."

[Lilium]

Aleta looked at Vi strangely, then asked, "Do I need a reason to save a dying life? Do I really need to know the identity of the bleeding girl who washed up on my lawn dangerously close to death before I steer her from that death?"

Vi bit her lip. "No," she said finally. "No, I don't think so."

"Go out and live your life," Aleta told her. "The way you're supposed to. You're so young-- why would you ever throw your life away? Those who waste away... are a waste of air and space."

Vi's eyes widened. How could this kind woman speak so coldly?

"I don't know how to live," she admitted finally. "I think I knew once, but I forgot."

"You can always learn. And the best way to learn is to do it, and you'll find what's right and what's wrong. You've already found the wrongest of wrong ways. Do the opposite, and you can't go wrong."

[Lilium]

"Or..." Aleta went on, her tone different; more serious; "...you can take the road that will always be there for you to take."

"What do you... mean?"

"You can go home.... home, to whoever awaits. I can tell that there is someone that lies in wait for you."

Vi stiffened.

[Lilium]

Aleta's eyes softened. She smiled sadly.

"She's been waiting, dear," she said gently. "For a long time. Ever since you left, she's been waiting for you to come home. She will protest and say that is not the case, but...." She paused, then looked away and said, "She's very worried. She knows you've probably gotten into some trouble. Don't make her worry, dear... she loves you more than you'll ever know."

Vi was on the verge of tears. She knew, deep in her heart, that what Aleta was saying was true. Lucy loved her. Of course she did. And while she'd let Vi go, she didn't want to, and she hoped and prayed every day that Vi was still alive and breathing.

No matter how mad or disappointed Vi had made her, she knew that would always be welcome home.

[Lilium]

And yet......


.....if she went home.....

"I can't go home..."

....she just might lose herself again.